Remember This…?

          Episode #4: The
lost art of VHS or the ways analog has programmed my thinking patterns.

            It’s
that time to Remember This… and continue the stroll down memory lane while
examining the current theme loosely revolving around that wonderful black box you
had in your living room; the one with the warm slit and the dust cover just
begging you to insert some rigid plastic rectangular VHS tapes inside it. Push
play here.

 

 “The Homecoming Queen’s
Got a Gun” is a 1984 song by
American singer–comedian Julie Brown parodying 1950s’ “teen tragedy”
songs.

            Instead
of romancing those dirty things filled with more random data than a mnemonic
courier, let’s talk about what we actually recorded on them. The smut, the MTV,
the sporting events, the aerobic shows, political speeches [yeah sure] and
whatever else you could cram into your TDK. Let’s focus on the smut first.

           This
was before the internet and chances are if you never saw it then you might
never get the chance. Remember feeling curious on those days your parents
weren’t home and you started rummaging through their personal drawers and
closets? Didn’t you feel like Indiana Jones? The fixed cable box if you had one
never quite worked after a while and all you had was that fuzzy scrambled
signal and the hint of nudity just behind the static line. Sometimes you had
friends and when you had them, you might even trade tapes and watch them with
the sound off. Those were the days, the days when biological functions were
both science fiction and a circus sideshow. You had them unmarked, or scratched
in some way, so you could recognize them. They were hidden behind your drawer,
in your closet, inside a shoe box or in the garage. If you didn’t want to watch
a scene you had to sit there and fast forward or rewind. Two hour tapes became
six hour tapes and so one. Scenes were cut and paste together like a William
Burroughs production; fake tits and cocaine pricks that were only overshadowed
by the wooden acting and Aqua Net hair. Those weren’t skeletons in your closet;
they were the stains of youth after dark.

             

         Remember
Public Access television? Before podcasts or whatever the new thing is nowadays we
had a set of channels (free channels) on our televisions where anyone could get
a half or an hour long show on the rotation. It didn’t matter if you had talent or
not because we all know most Americans don’t. Anything you could imagine was on
it and people took advantage of it with ease. Because you favorite custom VHS
tapes were in a way a microcosm of what Public Access was (some cases still
is). It was low budget but entertaining. While your family watched Dallas, you
were watching random insanity and self-exploitation. And it was beautiful as it
happened.

Here are some examples
of the insanity I am talking about. I am going to make you
experience the thinking process and patterns of a tape head… an insomniac tape
head. I’m going to take you on a journey through my mind and my youth. You’ll
recognize some of the places and some of the things but in here they are sexy
and mutilated and without guilt. TALK HARD.

–Sam Haine. 

CONCRETE
TV– Concrete
TV is a NYC-based public access show that aired on Channel 67 combining sex,
violence and art into video collages set to music. This half hour program is
produced by Ron Rocheleau, known as Concrete Ron. It is shown Friday
nights at 1:30 AM. Episodes are heavily thematically based in 1980s video,
hearkening back to the early MTV days, in a mash-up art style.

  The Dangers of the live cable access program

 That concludes this session of Remember this, Retro Lovers. And until the next time keep your finger on the rewind button. Or call 555- KVETCH.